Photo: Linda M. Tilton
Linda Tilton, 49, was working at the K&K Food Mart in Lockport, New York, when a customer frantically ran into the store, screaming about a dog. "It was Saturday, August 8," Tilton tells Paw Nation. "I'll never forget it. [The customer] said, 'I just found some people dragging a dog behind a car! It's in the parking lot.'"
According to the Niagara Gazette, a witness named Martin Clough first noticed a pure-bred Cocker Spaniel being dragged behind a Chevrolet Lumina near the K&K store. Clough got the car to stop, whereupon a "teenage girl driver and male passenger got out of the car, opened the trunk of the car to release the leash, then got back into the car" and sped away.
As soon as Tilton heard about the dog, she ran out from behind the counter, but the man stopped her. "No, no, don't go out there," he said. "You don't want to see the dog; it's dead." Tilton, an animal lover and pet owner, started crying.
Just then, a second customer ran into the store and said the dog was trying to walk and needed water. Tilton rushed to the parking lot and saw a black and white puppy that looked like it had been torn open. "All up his right front leg and across his shoulder and chest were exposed," Tilton recounts to Paw Nation. "His chest, groin and stomach looked like it had been ripped apart. I could clearly see his ribs." The top and bottom of each paw had been burned away by the road and Tilton could see his bones and tendons. There was a terrible smell of burning skin.
Wrapping the puppy in a sweatshirt, Tilton got into her car and raced to the nearest veterinary clinic and sped to the Greater Buffalo Veterinary Emergency Clinic 20 miles away. The entire time, the puppy never lost consciousness and never made a sound, says Tilton. "He couldn't lie down. He stood on the floor of the front passenger side and laid his head on the seat."
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